


Five Times Nolan Saw David’s Daughter

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Revenge (TV)
Genre: Angst, Childhood, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Friendship, Gen, Implied Emily/Nolan, Memories, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2012-11-25
Packaged: 2017-11-19 12:05:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/573082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David used to tell Nolan stories about Amanda.  Now that she’s an adult, once in a while, Nolan can still catch glimpses of the girl she used to be. </p><p>Sometimes he thinks it's sweet.  Sometimes it just reminds him that she's never going to be that girl again.</p><p>A Yuletide Treat for Ashcat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Nolan Saw David’s Daughter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashcat/gifts).



> Spoilers for Fall '12 season of the show. 
> 
> All references to Amanda or Emily are to the main character of the show who is known as Emily Thorne.
> 
> For the prompt: moments where Nolan sees Emily and is reminded of the little girl that David always told him about. I hope you like it!

_“I don’t want to talk about the Graysons,” David said, resting his face in his hands._

_Nolan hesitated. He came to commiserate, to comfort David with a reminder that he still had a friend, that he had an ally who knew that David got screwed. Nolan knew that David didn’t belong in jail, talking to him from the other side of a partition. He knew, and the knowledge burned; it singed his conscience._

_But he understood. Nolan needed to excoriate the Graysons, but David needed not to. “What do you want to talk about?” Nolan asked._

_“Something good. Anything good.” David looked weary. He looked like a man in a place where there were too few reminders that anything in life could be good._

_Nolan paused. He owed David everything, but he still didn't know the man that well. But there was something he knew for sure would get David talking. “Tell me about Amanda,” Nolan said gently._

_David’s eyes softened, letting light back into them._

_“Amanda is an amazing girl,” David said. He was worried about her, Nolan could see, but also grateful to speak about her. It was the closest thing to a smile Nolan had seen on him in ages._

_It was like he was the old David again. Just for a second._

_“Tell me more,” Nolan said. And he listened, hungrily, to the sound of hope in David's voice. As if his words were bread._

__

\---------

1\. A couple of days after Amanda found out that Nolan’s father had died, she came over to his place and proceeded to ask him for a series of favors regarding her latest scheme. 

As they talked, she casually brought out a Tupperware box full of peanut butter cookies, opened it, and slid it over to Nolan to offer him one.

Nolan stared down at the cookies. He looked up at Amanda, whose expression was carefully blank.

“Thank you,” he said, and took one. He bit into it, tasted its salty sweetness, and remembered a story David had told him long ago. 

“Sure,” she said nonchalantly and continued detailing her plans.

He didn’t let on that he knew that she was being kind, or that she was pretending her kindness meant nothing. If he mentioned it, she would start to be more careful. 

He knew that she would do anything to stop Nolan from seeing her as the little girl she once was.

~

_“Sometimes, when I think about Amanda’s mother, I just feel… I just have so many regrets. I get really... down,” David said. “But when I feel that way, when I'm just staring into space like a zombie, Amanda goes to the kitchen and puts peanut butter cookies on a plate. And they’re her favorite, you know, so it’s like she’s giving me her favorite thing. And she hands me the plate and says, ‘Feel, better, daddy.’ I mean, can you believe that? At her age, and she thinks it’s her job to make me feel better.”_

_“She takes care of the people she cares about,” Nolan observed, not saying out loud that it obviously ran in the family._

_“I just hope she's okay. I hope ... that she always has someone,” David said, sighing. “I hope she’s never alone.” He looked downward, his face leaning half into shadow, and Nolan felt keenly the separation between them, the glass that kept David enclosed and apart._

__

\---------

2\. Amanda explained the next stage of her plan as they walked along the beach. She picked up a stray stick to draw a diagram of the mansion in the sand, pointing out the weak points in the security system, mentioning contingency plans for where Nolan should meet with her if things went awry. She added in a few trees around the perimeter, added a few outside locations as landmarks, and soon the drawing was a sprawling depiction of the area, accurate but also charming in its way.

Nolan smiled.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said with an innocent smile. He knew that she hated his ‘innocent’ smile.

She rolled her eyes and said, “Pay attention. We’ll need this exit if security focuses on the basement.”

He nodded and watched as she used the stick to erase the evidence of her plan. He tried not to look amused.

~

_“She loves to draw in the sand,” David told him, eyes full of pride. “Pictures, huge pictures, of places we’ve been, houses and parks and zoos full of animals. Tons of details, the pictures are about ten times as big as she is. One time, she did a school report on the Solar System, and when she was telling me about it, she drew the whole system on the beach. Rings around Saturn and everything. And all the moons of Jupiter.”_

_“Impressive,” Nolan said with a smile. It was always nice to watch David’s eyes light up._

_“She’s so creative. And she loves to learn. I mean, I know every parent thinks this. But I really believe that she’s the kind of kid who’s capable of doing anything she sets her mind to.”_

\---------  


3\. “This isn’t going to work!” Nolan said, keeping the panic out of his voice. Amanda was about to get herself killed or arrested if she kept up with her plan.

“It’ll be fine if you just calm down!” 

“There are agents crawling all over!”

“I’ll handle it!”

“Emily!”

“Wait here, follow the plan. I mean it, Nolan,” she said. Her eyes were ice, but her mouth was turned down in a stubborn frown.

She walked out and Nolan sighed. Has there ever been a time when Amanda didn’t get her way?

She turned out to be right, though. She got away clean and successful, with no one but him the wiser.

This time, anyway. The next mission went a little different.

~

_She is the most determined person I have ever met in my life,” David said, equal parts exasperation and pride. “And I mean any person of any age.”_

_“Determination is good,” Nolan said with a smile._

_“Let’s not kid, she’s downright stubborn,” David said with a grin. “You know, when I taught her to ride a bike, the first thing she did was demand I take the training wheels off. She wouldn’t even try them.”_

_“And how’d that go?”_

_“She fell a few times. But she learned to ride by that night.” David was practically beaming with pride._

_Nolan grinned. He joked, “Woe to anyone who tries to get in the way of Amanda Clarke.”_

__

\---------

4\. Nothing. No quips, no pleas, no memory reel of his lifetime flashing before his eyes.

Just fear. And a gun.

Pointed at him.

Again.

He was really going to have to examine how he ended up in these predicaments.

Not that he didn’t already know who landed him here.

He tried to think of something that would be a worthy last thought, and then almost laughed. He knew he wasn't going to have some grand revelation in his last moment. Probably, he would just throw up and regret everything and die. 

“Why are you here? Who sent you? Tell me!” the man said and smacked him again with the pistol.

“I don’t know anything. I'm so sorry,” Nolan said, voice dripping with sarcastic regret as he smiled sympathetically. He knew the sarcasm wouldn’t go well for him, but the bastard really deserved it. He prepared for the man to move toward him again, to put some more hurt.

Instead the man backed up.

Not good.

He raised the gun and tightened his jaw, getting ready to shoot.

Nolan closed his eyes.

And then. 

Something loud. 

But not as loud as a gun.

“Nolan! Let’s go,” he heard a familiar voice demanding.

He opened his eyes to see Emily standing over the unconscious man, his gun safely kicked away.

“My hero,” Nolan said, ironic tone not quite covering up the fact that he was tearing up with the sheer relief of being alive.

She rolled her eyes, but he noticed her quick concerned glance at his bruised face.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Then it’s time to go.”

He managed a small smirk. “You got it, Wonder Woman.”

~

 

_“You know what she likes to do when she plays pretend?” David said, laughter crinkling his eyes. “She likes to play princess. But not just any princess. A princess with superpowers. She a princess who fights the monsters and saves the little animals in the forest.”_

_“That’s pretty badass,” Nolan said with a smile. It was good to see David laugh._

_“She has this tube that used to hold wrapping paper. I asked if it was her magic wand, but she thought that was the silliest question in the world.”_

_“What was it?”_

_“A club to beat dragons with.”_

_“Obviously,” Nolan laughed._

_“But only the bad ones. Not the good dragons.”_

_“Of course. She’s a superhero princess with a strong sense of justice.”_

_“Exactly,” David laughed. “You know I wonder if maybe I let her watch too many cartoons.”_

_“Nah,” Nolan said, “The world could always use another superhero.” David grinned at him, and the tightness in Nolan's gut, the grip of being able to do nothing for the man who gave him everything, loosened. Just slightly._

\---------

5\. Months passed. Amanda had thought she was done losing people, but it turned out she wasn't. Not that she ever showed it. 

Nolan watched 'Emily' all day, giving her targets her perfect toothy Hampton smiles and the occasional verbal barb. She played her part perfectly, even when she was falling apart.

He knew that’s what was happening, because she had been avoiding him all day. Of course she didn’t like that he could read her. (He understood. There were times when he absolutely hated how well she knew him).

But when the events and meetings and parties were over and her work for the day was done, when the fog rolled over the beach and everyone had retreated to their gilded homes, Nolan knocked on her door. He waited, but there was no answer. 

He pushed the door open. It wasn’t locked.

“Get out, Nolan,” he heard. She was sitting on the first step of the stairs, hands in her face. 

He wondered for a moment if she had sat in that same spot when she was a little girl, when she cried over all the heartbreaks of her childhood. He tried, for just a moment, to imagine what that would have looked like: Amanda, hurt and open and waiting for comfort on the step. 

He couldn’t; all he could think of was how much she looked like David the day he almost cried in jail.

He walked over slowly and sat next to her on the step, his long legs sharp and angular in front of him. He could feel the tension in her, the resentment that he was seeing her in this state.

“Please let me stay,” he finally asks. 

It’s close to begging. He doesn’t care.

She doesn’t expect this. Maybe she expects him to push, maybe a witty deflection. But not this.

She looks up at him, and for the first time since he’s known her as Emily Thorne, her eyes reveal _everything._

He reaches for her, slowly, and she leans into him, slowly, her forehead pulling in to rest on his shoulder. Somehow, beyond all prediction, he feels the drops of moisture on his shirt.

She is letting herself cry in his arms.

He clings tightly. He holds on to her, more tightly than he has ever held on to anything.

~

_“You know, when she’s hurt, when she’s sad, when I hug and tell her it’s going to be all right, I just feel like I would do anything – absolutely anything – to make her feel better,” David said, eyes downcast._

_“I tried to visit her, but I’m getting blocked by someone,” Nolan said._

_“Don’t," David said quicly. "She’s better off not knowing. At least until she’s older. It’s not safe for her to know. Or for there to be a record of communication from me to you to her.”_

_Nolan nodded. He didn’t like it, but it was David’s choice._

_“It kills me that she’s hurting and I can’t do anything for her,” David confessed and pressed his face into his clenched hands._

_Nolan didn’t know what to say. If the positions were reversed, David would know exactly what to tell him. But Nolan didn’t. Even though it was the closest to breaking as Nolan had seen him._

_Finally, David looked up at him. “Promise me, Nolan. Someday, you’ll have someone in your life that you care about. That you would risk anything for. When that happens... don’t let that person go. Hold on as tight as you can. Will you promise me that?”_

_Nolan stared at him for a long time, uncertain of something. Finally, he promised, “I will.”_


End file.
